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Sharon Lemburg: A Woman
of Many Facets
Jan. 13, 2006
“In all thy ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”
With this quote, Sharon Lemburg began the statement she wrote this past Sunday to clarify her motives for proposing a short, elective philosophy course about Intelligent Design for the intersession at Frazier Mountain High School.
On Sunday, Sharon Lemburg raises her guitar and sings with the Frazier Park Assembly of God “How Great Thou Art”, then, like 150 million other Americans of faith, on Monday morning she steps into her weekday job in a secular environment. She teaches the Philosophy of Design intersession class at Frazier Mountain High School and coaches the Lady Falcon Varsity soccer teams. This year’s team is 3-2 for High Desert League play so far this season. Mother of grown twin girls and two boys, she is married to Larry Lemburg, Pastor of the Frazier Park Assembly of God Church, which meets in a pleasant building just west of The Dream Castle Bakery and Cafe on Mt. Pinos Way.
(Sharon writes)
The idea of this class was not created on the spur of the moment. I believe that this is the class that the Lord wanted me to teach.
And despite all odds, I am teaching the class.
Some will look at this and say, “well, she has another motive...such as to preach the Gospel.” But you know that was not my intention.
My motives were honest and sincere, in that all I desired was to present an educational experience to give the students an opportunity to hear and study about the philosophers of design, to be able to critically analyze them and to learn to examine the opinions or philosopies and to weigh them...to ask who made the statement, what is their bias, what is their philosophy, what evidence do they bring?
Each student in my class will have the opportunity to hear and study philosophies concerning the origin of life.
These ideas represent atheistic, agnostic, liberal and Christian views. We are looking at the ways these views have shaped and changed our world views, and I am challenging these students to know what they think and what those thoughts are based on.
To know it because they believe it, not because someone else says ‘it is so,’ but to become critical thinkers who can express their own beliefs.
--Sharon Lemburg,
Philosophy of Design instructor
January 8, 2006
Sunday and Monday
Commentary by Patric Hedlund, Managing Editor for The Mountain Enterprise
In 1886 Pastor Carl Boberg visited the beautiful southeast coast of Sweden. He was suddenly caught in a midday thunderstorm with awe-inspiring moments of flashing violence, followed by a clear brilliant sun and the calm sweet songs of birds in nearby trees. He fell to his knees, overwhelmed by a sense of awe and gratitude.
The poem Boberg wrote about his experience is now a beloved American hymn. On Sunday, Jan. 8, Sharon Lemburg was playing the guitar and singing this song with the congregation of the Frazier Park Assembly of God Church when I visited to learn more about the communities of faith that so deeply shape the culture of our mountain.
The service was joyful, friendly and inclusive, with a warm sense of families and friends joining together to share worship and prayer. Across the street, 80 more people met at the Frazier Park School with Pastor Fred Rose’s Evangelical Free Church. At Frazier Mountain High School, the Four Square Church meets every Sunday, not far from the Mennonites. A group in Pine Mountain gathered to study world religions. In Pinon Pines a latke party recently celebrated Hannukah. And over in Lake of the Woods, as the Mormons were still praying, those leaving mass at Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church smiled to see the progress on the new Lutheran church being built by the volunteer hands of the El Camino Pines congregation. A joke among those who remember the howling blizzards that left us buried in three-foot snow drifts at this time last winter is: “God said ‘Let there be sun until the Lutherans get their roof on.’”
How Great Thou Art
O Lord, My God, when I, in awesome wonder, consider
all the worlds Thy hands have made I see the stars, I hear the rolling
thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
—Hymm, written by Pastor Carl Boberg
Sunday reveals a rich and generous sprit on our mountain. On Monday, at jobs and in school, we can be grateful for the right to be diverse--and private--about what it is we each believe.
If a storm over separation of church and state emerges here, may the calm sweet song of respect and compassion for our neighbors, in all our human complexity, quickly follow.
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